


Lost in the Heat

by helhan (rosewithoutathorn)



Series: Find A Way (To Bring Myself Back Home) [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel
Genre: Civil War Team Iron Man, F/F, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Jarvis Is Not A Babysitter, M/M, Pre-Iron Man 1, Tony and Pepper Are The Most Dysfunctional Couple On Earth, Who Gave Tony Stark A Kid?, not me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 18:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20680091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosewithoutathorn/pseuds/helhan
Summary: Tony Stark was a broken man long before his enforced sabbatical in an Afghani cave.





	1. May 2009

** PROLOGUE**

** May 3rd 2009 **

As the ramp lands and the bright California sunshine floods the hold of the plane, for a moment Tony almost feels whole again. In the split second before his eyes adjust he could swear that Pepper is wearing his diamond and platinum bands on her ring finger, and that there are two smaller figures waiting patiently beside her rather than just one.

Then he blinks and the moment, the… _mirage_… passes, just like that. 

He has a literal hole in his heart as well as a metaphorical one. There are no wedding rings, there is no diamond and sapphire cluster on Pepper’s fourth finger, there is no hyperactive seven-year-old running towards him with a shriek and a smile. There is only an ex-wife, far, far too good for him, and a fourteen year old daughter whose birthday he’s missed and who really doesn’t need the extra trauma that the last three months have undoubtedly brought her. 

Rhodey stands behind him, holding the wheelchair ready to push him down the ramp, but at the last moment Tony raises a hand. “Help me out of this thing,” he says. “Let me walk.”

“Just down the ramp, man, it’s steep—”

Tony shakes his head. “Rhodes, buddy… please… let my daughter see me walk. And— what’s this?” he gestures distastefully at the gurney on the tarmac. “I don’t need that, get rid of it.”

“Alright, alright, I got you. But let me help you down.” Rhodey, ever the good friend, pulls him up bodily, taking Tony’s weight in such a way that it looks as though he’s standing on his own. He eyes Tony carefully, back to their audience below. “She’s okay, you know,” he says lowly. “I checked in every day, they’re both okay.”

Tony just nods and focuses on putting one foot in front of the other, on staying upright as the floor tilts beneath him. 

Melina is crying, and doesn’t run to him the way her little brother would have, but she takes a few steps forward and reaches for him, hesitating, her eyes flickering from his face to his cast and the wheelchair abandoned behind him. 

“Hey, Mellie Bellie,” Tony says gruffly, and holds out his good hand to wrap her in a hug.

“I missed you, Dad,” she sniffles into his shoulder.

“I missed you too, sweetheart. I’m sorry I didn’t make your birthday.” 

Mel shrugs, and Tony winces reflexively when her shoulder brushes his bruised chest. She frowns. “I was only fourteen, it’s not a big deal.” She takes half a step backwards, scanning him for injuries, always eagle-eyed even when she can barely see for crying. 

“Not a big deal?” he echoes. “My fourteenth birthday, I was preparing for college.”

“And the reason I’m not is because you said I had to wait at least two more years. Fourteen isn’t a thing. If you’d missed my sixteenth, _ then _ I’d be pissed.” Her fingers brush over his cast and the bandaging on his lower ribs, hidden by the cut of his suit but not well enough for her to miss it. 

“Don’t let your mother hear you say that.”

“Pepper’s heard me say a lot worse.” Her tone is light, but she’s still looking him over, examining the bruises on his knuckles, on his cheeks, the dark circles under his eyes.

Her eyes land, at last, on his chest. Tony stiffens. 

“Dad,” she chokes. “Dad, what the hell—” 

Her fingers hover in the space over the arc reactor, obscured by the tie and the strap of the cast, but he can’t forget about it, every time he breathes he knows it’s there. And now so does she. 

“It’s a pacemaker,” he says quickly.

“That’s not like any pacemaker I’ve heard about.” She bites her lip. “Dad, it’s huge, what—”

“Not here, sweetheart, later,” he tells her quietly. “Please? I’ll tell you later. It’s not a big deal, I swear I’m fine.” 

She nods, but her bottom lip is trembling. “Okay.”

Tony pulls her back into him with his good arm — God, she’s grown, he’s been gone less than three months and she’s _ grown _ — and says nothing when her shoulders start shaking, just runs a tremulous hand through her hair and shuts his eyes and breathes. Because no matter what he’d told himself to keep himself going in that cave, there were nights he never thought he’d get to do this again; nights he wished he’d done it more often, wished he’d held Mel a little tighter, a little longer, when he had her, because losing one child had broken him, and thoughts of the other had been the only thing that kept him alive. 

Melina’s tears have soaked through his shirt, and he’s not good with crying, has never been good with crying, but he lets her, stroking her hair and holding her close. He drops a kiss onto the top of her head. “I love you tons.”

“I love you more,” she mumbles, and buries her face in his jacket, in the crook of his armpit the way that Arno used to and it takes all the strength Tony has left to keep from breaking down right there. He takes a deep breath and removes his hand from Mel’s hair. For the first time in three months, his gaze locks with Pepper’s.

She steps forward uncertainly, giving him a watery smile. 

Tony holds out his hand.

“Your eyes are red,” he observes, when she comes close enough to take it. “A few tears for your ex-husband?”

“Maybe one or two,” she admits, pressing his fingers lightly. “I’m allowed to be worried about the father of my children.” 


	2. June 1998

**PART I**

**“Wonder Boy”**

The first time Tony Stark meets Virginia Potts isn’t an accident, isn’t coincidence, isn’t fate or destiny or the result of some great cosmic conspiracy. There are no fireworks or thunderclaps, his world doesn’t suddenly explode into technicolor, and neither does time stop or the ground tremble beneath his feet. Many years later, once he’s been forced to acknowledge the existence of magic and mind control and myths come to life, he’ll wonder why not. 

But in 1998 Tony is a far younger and far simpler man, with a simple worldview; and so when he’s accosted one summer afternoon by a flame-haired, angry-eyed woman in stilettos his first thought is not _ marry me _ but instead _ is she a reporter, a one night stand, or a sexual harassment lawsuit? _

\---

**1.**

**June 1998**

It’s a little after midday, and Tony is tired, hungover and very, _ very _ hungry. He’d been dragged out of bed at a godforsaken hour by an unsympathetic Obie, forced to sit through the Shareholders’ AGM, the morning briefing _ and _ a finance meeting without a break, and had thrown up the only actual meal he’d had since lunch yesterday on the PCH five hours ago. The Director for Business Development is tailing him down the corridor – because Tony is being herded out of the building to another, only _ slightly _ more entertaining meeting in R&D – twittering on about _ oil prices _ of all things, which Tony knows abstractly are important but cannot bring himself to care about, and behind _ him _ the VP for Land Systems and… someone else… are arguing Very Loudly with Obie about costs and distribution channels.

Tony does not want to be here.

Tony wants three Advil, a burger, and a stiff drink. And maybe a repeat of last night’s Vegas shenanigans because to the best of his recollection they involved four bottles of Cristal, a showgirl, a waitress and a certain shoe designer’s ex-boyfriend.

What he definitely doesn’t want – definitely doesn’t_ need _ – is some uppity redheaded social sciences graduate pushing past security with a scowl and shoving some papers in his face without so much as a by-your-leave.

So, naturally, that’s exactly what he gets.

“Your math is wrong,” she asserts boldly, and her hair color probably shouldn’t be as surprising as it is, considering she’s clearly some sort of hallucinatory attempt by his conscience to wake him the fuck up from this hangover, already. 

Tony blinks.

She’s still there.

“You’re… fiery,” he says with a wrinkle of his nose, after the moment it takes to compute that she’s not actually a figment of his imagination and he is therefore expected to _ reply _ to that absurdity of a statement. “Makes me wanna sneeze. You’re not sick, are you?”

“I haven’t had a cold since I was in grade school.” Her tone cools distinctly, and Tony finds himself wondering if she can turn it on and off, up and down at will, like a tap. “Your corrections, please, I don’t have long.”

Tony knows he ought to stop and hand over the… secretarial accountant?... and her papers to his good friend the Director for Being-Turned-On-By-Oil-Prices, or better yet to Obie, whose actual job it is to deal with this kind of thing, but something about her stops him.

He pauses and holds up a finger. Security freezes mid-arrest. Oil Prices bites his tongue. The secretary’s mouth, almost imperceptibly, twitches.

_ Ah, _ Tony thinks. _ She’s one of those. _

From behind comes the tell-tale flat-footed step and low cough that signals an Obadiah Stane Intervention. Now Tony’s never claimed to be a paragon of decision making - he’s somewhat impulsive normally, and his barely-existent sense of self-preservation goes right out of the window when he’s drunk - and he’s always been a sucker for pretty women in heels playing mind games. Combining his raging hangover, interminable boredom, and this ambitious little ingenue-act of a secretary in expensive stilettos? 

The pull is irresistible. 

_ Fuck it _.

He raises a challenging eyebrow. “See, I think you must be sick because I don’t get math wrong, and if you were working at full capacity – or were perhaps a little more aware of _ who it is you’re talking to _ – you would know that, Miss…”

“Potts,” she replies, and despite the detached civility of her tone he sees the flash in her eyes, quickly subdued. “And believe me, I know _ exactly _ who I’m talking to, Mr. Stark.”

“Because accosting your boss’ boss’ boss in front of half the C-suite is _ less _ conducive to you being fired than you _ not _correcting some already-correct sums?”

_ What’s her game? _ he wonders. Her assumptions are ludicrous and her projection of confidence overkill, and those shoes… well, she didn’t buy them herself, that’s for sure.

“The numbers _ aren’t _ correct, and consequently they’ll lose _ your _ company a figure ranging somewhere in the upper six figures over fourth quarter, but if you insist…” Miss Potts shrugs elegantly. In his periphery, Tony sees Obie pause. “I’d do it myself, but I’ve been reliably informed by my line manager that scribbling over your handwritten accounts will see me ‘out on my ass without a paycheck’, so I figured I’d make you do it instead.” She holds the papers out to him again, one corner nudging ever-so-slightly against his chest and catching on the button of his shirt.

“I don’t scribble,” Tony tells her.

“No?”

“No. Because I don’t get things wrong, Miss Potts.”

She narrows her eyes, and he’s hard-pressed not to smirk. But then: “third column, eighth line down,” she ripostes, that cold fire reignited. “You wrote in thirty _ six _ thousand eight hundred twenty per unit, it should be thirty _ four _ thousand _ nine _ twenty. I really have no idea where you got the six from—”

Tony looks down at the papers.

He squints.

Then he takes off his sunglasses and looks again.

The numbers _ are _ wrong, and Miss Potts’ hair is just as startlingly bright without the red-tinted lenses of his aviators lending her a few shades. “Huh,” he says. “You’re… fired.”

“—the eight I can understand if you forgot to carry the… What?”

Tony waits a beat before continuing, for dramatic purposes. “…And promptly rehired! I need a new PA, mine left, you’ll do. Congratulations.”

Miss Potts blinks.

Tony brushes past the outstretched papers and starts walking. “Who’s your line manager, I’ll have them told, you can collect your stuff at the end of the day. You’re from the pool, right, not accounting proper? Of course you are, look at you—”

True to expectation, she totters after him. “Um, yes I am— Mrs. Arbogast— What’s wrong with the way I look?... Mr. Stark, I really didn’t—”

“Didn’t what, expect this?” He flicks his gaze to her, and then spins abruptly on his heel when he realizes that the gaggle of executives continued to follow him around like a litter of baby chickens, or whatever. “Gentlemen, are we done here?”

With only a few raised eyebrows and barely any muttering, Oil Prices, Finance Argument, and the other guy (who, Tony belatedly realizes, is his new PA’s ex-boss’ boss the Director for Human Resources) take their leave. The vice-like grip of Tony’s headache loosens just a little.

Obie, torn between unimpressed and grudgingly amused, shrugs and stays put.

Tony rolls his eyes and returns his attention to the woman next to him. “Walk with me, Miss Potts, I’ve got a meeting at the Skunkworks—” he checks his watch “—eight minutes ago. Oops. You can see I need a new PA.”

They walk.

“Take the afternoon off,” he tells her as they turn into the foyer. “Hit the shops, upgrade your wardrobe to something a little less… bland. You look positively secretarial.”

“And isn’t a PA just a glorified secretary?”

“_Glorified_ being the operative word, Miss Potts.” Tony gives her a meaningful look before he slips his aviators back on. The glass and white marble of the lobby is glaringly reflective. “And don’t pretend you don’t know exactly what I mean.”

They walk out, Miss Potts a careful half-step behind him, Obie bringing up the rear. People scatter, stare, fall silent as they pass.

“I think I do, Mr. Stark.”

“Good.”

The three of them cross the central plaza, making quick time, and at Tony’s behest take a sharp right onto the lawn that divides the campus in two. “We’ll find you a contract or three to sign,” he continues airily, “and naturally a company car will be provided this afternoon. Transport – including the lease of a vehicle appropriate for the executive assistant to the CEO of one of the most profitable arms manufacturers in the States – can otherwise go on your expense account.”

“Understood.”

“Glad to hear it.” He doesn’t slow his pace, and is impressed when Miss Potts can keep up with him unflustered, even though her heels must be hell in the grass. “You’ll get my address once the NDA has been processed, a full job description and a copy of my schedule. Advance warning - I’m told I can be quite a handful.”

Obie snorts loudly, and Tony grins.

He reaches for his wallet, thumbs through it and holds out a card. “Use this today. It’s paid for by the company, so discretion _ is _advised. That means don’t use it to pay off your student loans, don’t buy yourself a condo, don’t abscond to the Cayman Islands, nothing illegal, no weird shit. Other than that, you’re good.” 

They step up onto the drive that leads to the concourse of the R&D building, and stop. Tony’s only sixteen minutes late, which is really quite impressive. “Any questions? I have time for none and the patience for exactly _ one, _ so please choose wisely.”

“You just met me and you’re handing me a Platinum Amex?”

“That’s your question?” he asks incredulously. “You’re_ questioning _ me handing over a charge card with a spending limit higher than all the paychecks you’ve ever had combined?”

Miss Potts quirks her lips and shrugs.

“Just take it,” he tells her, and she does. Not reluctantly, but not eagerly either. Like all her movements since their encounter began, the act is perfectly measured. “Consider it… an advance on your Christmas bonus.”

“It’s June, Mr. Stark.”

“Hence _ advance _ . Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, now. I think it goes without saying that if you _ do _decide to abscond you’ll be cut off before you can say ‘spending spree’, but we both know I won’t miss that money. Now, I do actually have to go, but Obie could you…?”

“Already on it,” the older man holds up his pager, and at Tony’s pointed glance gives the most imperceptible of nods.

“Perfect. I’ll see you later?”

“As planned,” Obie confirms.

“See you then.” Tony nods. “Miss Potts, I take my leave of you.”

She holds out a hand for him to shake. “Mr. Stark.”

He turns on his heel and strides into the building, attributing the sudden alleviation of his hangover to the brutally efficient air-conditioning and impending cup of halfway decent coffee, rather than the adrenaline that sends his brain spinning when he wonders whether he’s bitten off more than he can chew.

Obie certainly thinks so. As Tony steps over the threshold, he hears carried on the wind a whispered warning. “I say this with the best of intentions, Miss Potts, so please don’t take it the wrong way, but the last one only made it ten weeks and she was a hell of a lot more qualified than you. Whatever you think you’re going to get out of this little play, I hope it’s worth it.”

The doors slide shut behind him before Tony can hear her reply. 

\---

That evening, Obie drops by as promised with beer and hamburgers and a whole heap of paperwork concerning Tony’s newest hire. They sit down to reruns of _ Family Ties _ and discuss the outcome of the shareholders’ meeting that morning. Tony had paid attention to less than half of it, but it was the _ important _half, and for a good four episodes they talk stocks and voting interests and Board nominations, since a few of the faction they liked to call ‘The Old Guard’ had announced their intention to retire now they were halfway convinced that the Stark Heir (he would always be the Heir to them) wasn’t going to bankrupt them all.

Tony sighs. He’s been in the position six years now - it’s been a _ long _six years - and the blatant distrust of the board rankles with him. 

Obie is his President, his second-in-command and therefore in charge of almost all the day-to-day operations of Stark Industries; but for all that Tony dislikes the mundane responsibility of actually _ running _ the company, he does make sure he earns his salary as CEO. And since certain people have started to leave, to retire or - not to disrespect the dead or anything - _ pop off _ , Tony has started to feel as though he’s earning the _ title _as well. 

Despite this pressing business, however, it’s not much longer until the conversation turns to Miss Potts.

Obie leaves the copies of the contracts, the NDA and the soon-to-be-expanded background check on the coffee table. “You know what I’m gonna say, Tony.”

“That I made an impulsive decision and circumvented due process?” Tony nudges the thick stack with his foot disdainfully. “That it’s probably gonna backfire on me, explosively and expensively, via our morally upstanding friends the good journalists at _ People _ magazine?”

Obie snorts. “Got it in one. All of that. That and she wants something from you.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Tony shrugs, picking up the first document, the employment contract, and flicking through it idly. The signature is small and neat, _ ‘Virginia K. Potts’ _ sitting perfectly centred on the line at the bottom of each page in slanting, professional, unobtrusive cursive. “I can handle her.”

Obie chuckles, low and grumbling, over the canned laughter echoing out from the TV. “You’re too clever for your own good, sometimes.” 

“I’m sure you’ve told me that before, once or twice.” Tony tosses the contract back onto the table with a grin and reaches for his beer. Obie laughs, a great rumbling belly-laugh that almost drowns out Tony’s (still slightly self-conscious) giggle, and raises his own can in acknowledgement. 

Obie leaves at about one in the morning, slapping his hands on his thighs as he hauls himself up to say goodnight. He tosses Miss Potts’ paperwork onto Tony’s lap -_ “you better read it, boy” _\- and says he’ll let himself out. 

“Love to the family,” Tony calls over his shoulder, attention already absorbed in working out what colour, _ exactly _ , his new PA’s hair _ actually _ is.

“I’ll tell them,” Obie says, stopping in the doorway. “You should come by for dinner soon, it’s been a while. Izzy’s been asking after you.” 

Tony scoffs. “No he hasn’t. He’s what, sixteen? He’s got better people to hang out with than his old man’s business partner.” 

“Alright, maybe he hasn’t,” Obie laughs. “But I stand by my invitation to dinner. We’d love to have you over, it’d be good for him to see you, and I think, with a little effort, you could be a-” 

“-if the next words out of your mouth are ‘good influence on him’ I’m calling the cops because clearly I’ve been sitting next to an impostor all night and I haven’t noticed.”

“I’m serious, Tony. It’d be good for both of you, I think. And, well he’s not you, but he’s smart and he likes his science.”

Tony does not remember Ezekiel Stane ever showing more than a passing glimmer of interest in the science behind the guns and bombs and planes he so admires at industry shows, but then most kids don’t - or so he's assured. Before he can summon up a reasonably polite reply, though, the door clicks shut - and isn’t that typical of Obie, to plant an idea and run?

Tony scoffs and shrugs, and turns back to the paperwork. 

It takes a few hours, but once he’s gone through it all, Tony realizes that Obie’s words concerning Miss Potts were both more and less truthful than he might know. In fact, having flipped through the twenty-page provisional background check again and consequently rehashing every detail of their meeting in his head, Tony thinks that he may have unwittingly given Virginia K. Potts _ exactly _ what she wants.

“Virginia,” Tony muses, leafing through the stack. “_ Definitely _ not calling you _ Virginia _.” 

She does’t want his money, or his time, or his attention. She doesn’t want into his bed, is ambivalent about his bank accounts, and has enough connections on her own not to need his.

She’s ambitious, that much is obvious. Not _ desperation _ ambitious, or even _ motivation _ ambitious - Tony’s seen enough of both types in his life to spot those a mile away - but instead she’s naturally, inherently determined, in a way that is perhaps almost naïve. There aren’t very many of _ those _ types of people - and those types of people are usually idealistic, politically as well as personally, end up working for a non-profit in South Asia and saving themselves for Prince Charming or some greater purpose that never materializes. 

Virginia K. (K for Katherine according to the background check, and he’s not calling her that either) Potts is not like that. 

She won’t use his Amex to abscond to the Cayman Islands, or to some animal reserve in Africa, or to an orphanage in Nepal, or anywhere else for that matter. She won’t use it to make a sizeable donation to any one of the three charities of personal significance mentioned in her background check, though she might buy a bag or a bracelet or something equally trivial from a non-profit. But Tony’s certain that she’ll turn up tomorrow in another pair of expensive shoes, with a leather tote bag and a filofax, and do her damn best to fulfill every task he demands of her, and every expectation she thinks he has. 

Not because she _ cares _what he thinks, or because she’s where she wants to be, or doing what she wants to do, or is in any way remotely gratified by his notice or her promotion. 

No.

Miss Potts hadn’t necessarily _wanted _any of this. What she’d _wanted_ from him wasn’t power or money or fame or sex or even _experience_. 

It was a stepping-stone.

For once in his life, Tony _ isn’t _ the endgame. It’s not _ him _ she’s after. He’s not entirely sure _ what _ it is she’s after - wonders whether she could even name it herself - but _ that’s _ not the point. The _ point _ is that it could have been anyone’s company, anyone’s accounts, any position and any day, and she would have done _ exactly the same thing. _

For Tony, who has been – with one notable exception – at the center of his own universe since the moment he was born, the realization is as refreshing as it is disconcerting.

\---

The following morning Miss Potts is waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, a neatly written schedule in one hand and an espresso in the other. As expected, she’s traded in the stilettos for a pair of strappy, block-heeled court shoes, and the pencil-skirt-and-shirt secretarial uniform for a double-breasted navy pantsuit that fits her like a glove. Her red (auburn? strawberry?) locks are scraped back from her face and twisted neatly into a bun at the nape of her neck. 

She must have used half a can of hairspray or more because Tony can smell it from across the room, almost but not quite overpowering the new perfume - Chanel, he notes, one his mother used to wear - that she’d chosen to replace the one which made his nose itch.

He wonders idly how late she’d stayed up last night perfecting her look.

“My, my,” he says, pausing on the last step and adjusting his cufflinks, “don’t you look quite the part."

She gives him a small smile, looks down modestly to disguise the fleeting triumph. “I’m glad you think so.” She holds up the espresso, but Tony shakes his head.

“Put it on the table,” he tells her, with an indicative jerk of his chin. “I don’t like being handed things.”

“Noted.” She slips his Amex out of her pocket and places it beside the cup. “Thank you for the advance on my bonus, Mr. Stark."

“You’re more than welcome, Miss Potts.”

He downs the coffee, picks up the card and follows her out to the car, watching on admiringly as she lists off his schedule without a blink and slides into the backseat of the Phantom like she’s been doing it all her life.

“Morning, Hap.” Tony grins at Happy’s thoroughly unamused expression in the rearview mirror.

“Good morning, Sir. Straight to the office?”

Tony turns to Miss Potts expectantly.

“Yes please,” she says smoothly, pretending not to notice Happy’s antagonism or Tony’s delight in it. “Thank you, Mr. Hogan.”

He acknowledges the thanks with a terse nod, and they drive.


End file.
